I wrote about living - totally by coincidence - in the same village as my Great, Great, Grandparents HERE.
A couple of weeks ago on the local Next Door or Facebook website, a local man was asking if anyone with my maiden surname was still in the village as someone from the North of England had traced ancestors back to the 1750s when they all lived in the village and she had contacted him for help. He put me in touch with the lady - Wendy - who lives in Chester - and after emails back and forth it turns out she is descended from the line of the older Sister of my Great, Great, Grandfather buried here.
She is a very enthusiastic amateur genealogist and had gone into the history of the family and turned up a bit of social history from the 18C that I was completely unaware of.
It's the story of the Home Migration Scheme This was set up between 1835 - 1837 under the auspices of the Poor Law Commissioners after the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. The scheme involved sending 5,000 people from the poorest farming areas of southern and eastern England up to the manufacturing districts of Derbyshire and Lancashire to work in the cotton mills.
My Great, Great, Grandfather George was born in 1830 the 5th child for Thomas and Eliza who had married in 1822 - also in the village. Thomas was a farm worker earning about 10 shillings a week (and nothing if the weather was too bad for working) and the family qualified for Poor Relief from the Parish coffers.
In 1836 the family- by then there were 8 children - were among 2,000 people taken (probably no choice given) from Suffolk by horse and cart to London and then travelling up to Derbyshire by canal boat.
In Derbyshire the family worked for a Horace Mason who leased the Lumford cotton mill in Bakewell from the Arkwright family. They were there on a three year contract and Thomas and 4 of the children (aged 14, 12, 11 and 10) worked in the Mill as cotton spinners. (Younger children also worked in the mills at the time- working under the spinning and weaving machines - clearing up the waste). Together they would have earned about 24 shillings a week. - A lot more than his wages in Suffolk.
The family were still in Derbyshire in the 1841 census and by then there were 11 children in the family and they had moved to another mill at Darley Abbey Mill Village.
By 1843 they were back in my village and four more children were born.
So Great, Great Grandfather George was one of 15 children - he was born in my village, moving to Derbyshire and then back again, working like his father as a farm labourer and dying in the village in 1900.
Wendy wondered why the family would have come back to Suffolk after their time in Derbyshire but I said it was probably because Suffolk was their home and when you are born here and raised here it's always home and the only place they would have felt settled. .......like me.
Back Soon
Sue
I had someone contact me about my family some years ago. He was writing a book about his branch. Then someone contacted my husband and he was made aware of distant cousins. Genealogy is interesting but very time-consuming. My husband's sister-in-law has been deep into it for many years.
ReplyDeleteThe unanswered and unanswerable questions would irritate me.
It gets more interesting with stories like this rather than just births and deaths
DeleteFascinating! I'd like to do more family research but as jabblog says, it's very time consuming and you can become obsessed.
ReplyDeleteYes, I can see myself spending too much time on Ancestry!
DeleteThank you for this piece of family history. It reminds us of dire life conditions in centuries past. The answer to the "why come back" question is obvious, yes ! Did all the 15 children live up to adulthood ?
ReplyDeleteMaguy
Several did - enough to keep the surname going for 3 more generations at least
DeleteWe visited Mason Mills a few years ago, near Matlock bath, it's a fantastic place, the whole floor looks as if the shift had ended, very realistic. All the machinery was still in place and looked a terrible place to work, including where the little children had to crawl under the machines to keep the floor clean.
ReplyDeleteThere were so many mills -it was a huge business and awful conditions.
DeleteWhat a wonderful piece of family history. xx
ReplyDeleteI had no idea about their years up north
DeleteHow lovely to have such an interesting piece of family history. I know what you mean about feeling at home in a place and it’s why we have never moved very far. Catriona
ReplyDeleteI've got Suffolk through and through on both sides of the family so no surprise I've stayed so long
DeleteHow fascinating, I’m beginning to search back for our family history. Both my parents came from Suffolk, the villages around Newmarket. My father always maintained that Suffolk stayed the pretty county it is because lots of people left to work in the mill towns but I didn’t realise there was a scheme in place to promote such migration.
ReplyDeleteI'd never heard about this migration scheme, people had to move as the parish could refuse anymore poor relief
DeleteWhat a lovely thing to have your interesting family history filled in, especially by someone else who is being thorough {unlike my cousin who has drafted us an entirely fictitious family history just by not doing her due diligence on names and places}
ReplyDeleteI've been looking at other siblings of GGGrandfather and found a mix up with names by someone using the wrong bit of information and someone else had got a bit of family tree with many people missing from this century
DeleteWhat a fascinating story of part of your family history. Thanks for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteAlison in Wales x
It gets more interesting with stories about things I had no idea about
DeleteAmazing to learn that much family history.
ReplyDeleteFamily history is interesting. Moving entire families to work in the mills is fascinating. The economics is understandable; better wages and living for the family and mill operations improved. Making the move and transition from working the land to mill work is a very big change. Has Wendy been to Suffolk?
ReplyDeleteI think she had been to Suffolk at some time. I had no idea about the migration scheme
DeleteIt was a voluntary scheme - workers would be provided with transport and housing, and agreed to work for the employer for three years. They were paid, initially not as much as other employees, but more than they could get in depressed areas. More detail is available at https://clok.uclan.ac.uk/7949/1/Peter%20Brian%20Park%20Sept08%20between%20a%20rock%20and%20a%20hard%20place%20place%20the%20poor%20law%20commission%27s%20migration%20scheme%2C%201835-37%20Degree%20of%20MA%20unpublished%20Sept08unknown124.pdf.
ReplyDeleteNot completely voluntary - it saved the parish money from poor relief so they were encouraged to go
DeleteFamily history can be so fascinating - and there is always something else to discover (I especially loved finding the 'skeletons' hidden in the closet!).
ReplyDeleteI always feel super healthy in Suffolk. On the train from London a weight seems to lift from my shoulders when we cross into Suffolk. My Canadian husband has come to love it too although he finds the accent bewildering.
ReplyDeleteHow interesting, having new rellies and finding out about the jobs for so many Suffolk folk further north. I was doing some research on London relatives who had been left without a father, and the mother kept the two youngest and all the others ended up in the Workhouse, from whence they were sent on a similar scheme where they ended up in Manchester and environs, working in the mills or becoming shoemakers etc. I can't remember now if their mother kept in touch but she was clearly totally desperate to have to let them be taken into the Workhouse . . .
ReplyDeleteSo glad you've been able to take your family history back further. I'm also amazed your family was able to return to Suffolk after being forced to work in the northern mills. I first heard about the migration on one of the "Who do you think you are?" programmes. I think it was Jeremy Paxman, whose relatives were transferred to the cotton mills of Manchester. I'm another who is deeply into ancestral research. I've so far investigated four families on my maternal side taking them back to the 1680s. They've either been agricultural labourers, tenant farmers or publicans and most have lived within the county I live in, Warwickshire. I was born and brought up in north Gloucestershire and I feel uncomfortable if I travel far outside the county boundary! (I blame it all on Pigling Bland!)
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful to find out more of your family history.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
It's always so interesting to read about family histories. I did some research as Mum was interested. It's so amazing how most of the family, from way back, were born and bred in Suffolk and stayed there. If not there, they travelled up to Norfolk or down to Essex.
ReplyDeleteWow, that is a lot of info about your ancestors, Sue. My sister is the person who has been looking into our family history and the internet has certainly helped.
ReplyDeleteI wonder about your relative's huge family. Did they keep having children so they could put them to work do you think? Those poor kids were busy working from such a young age.
I find this kind of stuff fascinating, even when it isn't about my family! What an interesting story and isn't it amazing to be able to trace it in that way? IU love falling into the genealogy hole!
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